Businesses must support staff as they return to work

Mark Diffley

Friday May 22 2020, 12.01am, The Times

Mark Diffley

Friday May 22 2020, 12.01am, The Times

The extension of the job retention scheme, announced last week, will be welcomed by many businesses, allowing for a little more certainty at a time when it is in short supply. When business and life in general begin to take baby steps back to something approaching normality, the scale of the economic disruption will be clearer. If the recent Bank of England forecasts are anywhere near accurate, the damage will be of historic proportions and will require radical, imaginative thinking and policies to resolve.

However, the issues facing businesses go beyond the balance sheet. I admit to having been a little surprised recently when a (wholly unscientific) poll among colleagues and friends highlighted a range of issues beyond job and income security that are most